Doves and Dreams

The art of Frances MacDonald and J Herbert McNair

27 January 2007 - 22 April 2007

The careers of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his artist-wife Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh are well documented and internationally celebrated.

The achievements of the other members of the ‘Glasgow Four’ - Frances Macdonald McNair (1873-1921) and J Herbert McNair (1868-1955) - have however been only partially assessed.

The exhibition 'Doves and Dreams' aims to present for the first time the full narrative of their lives and art and reveal the artists as among the most consistently inventive and individual artist-designers of that period in Britain.

The McNairs’ story is presented in three chronological sections: the experimental student and studio years of the 1890s in Glasgow; domesticity, success and tragedy in Liverpool in the early 1900s; and the disappointments and creativity of the final years in Glasgow.